I WANT MORE, I WANT LESS
dir. Bryce Richardson, 2019
87 mins. United States.
In English.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 29 – 5 PM

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Having hosted premiere runs for idiosyncratic filmmakers like Juan-Daniel Molero, Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn and Jean-Gabriel Periot, Spectacle is proud to re-screen filmmaker Bryce Richardson’s debut feature I WANT MORE, I WANT LESS.

An accountant in Queens rents out the front of her store to a young man who repairs cell phones…and sometimes pickpockets them. She tries to mentor him, but is tested by his unscrupulous opportunism. Though the film explores how two people attempt to survive and thrive despite gentrification and the isolating, transactional nature of modern life, I Want More, I Want Less lingers on quiet moments, and never veers into didacticism.

Set against the backdrop of the 2016 elections (with scenes shot at real-life community board meetings and anti-Trump demonstrations), Richardson’s quotidian, sparse style evokes arthouse influences like Tsai Ming-Liang, but the film never belabors the distance between the audience and the characters. Semi-improvised, the screenplay instead allows Girma and Abbas to talk the way everyday people actually talk, a perfect match for Richardson’s unwavering eye for the details of how they manage to eke out a living in De Blasio-era NYC.

BRYCE RICHARDSON is a filmmaker originally from Houston, Texas, now based in New York. Richardson’s short films 2580 (2015) and ECLECTIC BRACKETS (2016) have played at festivals such as Slamdance, Woods Hole, Antimatter, and others. In 2011, the Metropolitan Playhouse produced “Baby Marty,” his one-act play. He currently serves on the board for Mono No Aware, a community-focused organization that teaches celluloid film production. I WANT MORE, I WANT LESS was shot over the course of nine weekends at real locations, including a very cluttered CPA’s office in Queens. The film won best screenplay at the Tacoma Film Festival.